The present invention relates generally to the field of magnetic information storage and retrieval, and more particularly to a tape appliance with always leading and/or always trailing head assemblies.
A typical approach for enabling higher data rates in magnetic tape technology is by adding active channels to the tape heads. However, this approach is becoming increasingly difficult to implement as heads, flex circuits, and electronics become more and more congested due to the need for packaging more I/O into the limited space of the head and head assembly. Typical solutions to this issue have included implementing head modules having a reduced footprint, along with associated cabling, connections, connectors, and ASICs. Disadvantages of this approach may include increased complexity and component cost, and lower yields and reliability. A need for redundant magnetic transducers for enabling read-verification during writing may further result in difficulties meeting packaging, electronic, and thermal requirements. For example, a tape drive with 16 active channels, such as a typical tape drive operating in accordance with Linear Tape-Open sixth generation (LTO-6), may contain 16 writer and 16 reader transducers in each of two head modules for bidirectional read-while-write operation, thus containing 64 channels and illustrating 2× redundancy. Achieving higher data rates, for example, by increasing the number of active channels to 64 while maintaining 2× redundancy, results in increasing the number of writer and reader transducers to 64 on each of two heads, resulting in 256 channels. Such a head assembly requires 256 pairs of I/O bonding pads. Given the space constraints in the current form factor products, this may present challenges in routing the wire bond leads, increased on-chip lead lengths and resistances, heat generation, and production yield. Cabling such a structure via conventional copper flex circuits may present additional challenges.